


Fidelity

by 5yenwish (iamacamera)



Series: Fidelity [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Adulthood, Angst, Break Up, Depression, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-25 16:40:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2628842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamacamera/pseuds/5yenwish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loyalty is something Yamaguchi thinks about a lot.  He always has.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fidelity

Tsukishima’s rejection has Yamaguchi laid out on the rug, literally.  He curls on the floor, wrapped in a blanket, and wonders when Nishinoya last vacuumed.  He certainly can’t remember vacuuming himself.  The carpet’s pile is lined with dust.  He remembers hearing once that dust is mostly human skin.  This disgusts him, but not enough that he picks his cheek up off the floor.  There’s a lone cheeto under the sofa.  Yamaguchi is bonding with it.

If he was in his right mind he wouldn’t be able take this shit anymore.  But, he isn’t in his right mind.  He will take anything Tsukishima dishes out.  As has been proven time and time again, he will bask in the glory of Tsukishima’s disregard.  

Recently he’s been doing that more than he cares to admit.  Tsukishima said they had plans tonight.  He knows he isn’t making this up because he’s looked at the text maybe thirty times in the past two hours.  He even showed it to the cheeto.  They agree, it says the same thing every time:

_Let’s do something Friday. - Tsukki_

But, it’s past midnight, and he hasn’t heard anything back despite his prompting.  He’s absorbed in indecision over whether or not to call him again. _I miss you_ , he thinks.   _Where are you?_  He feels sort of pathetic.  This is an absurd problem to have when you’ve been dating someone for six years.  

“You know I like Tsukishima, right?” Nishinoya calls from the kitchen.

Yamaguchi knows exactly what’s coming next.  Nishinoya is the undisputed king of unsolicited advice.  Yamaguchi doesn’t answer.  He knows Nishinoya will keep ranting no matter what he says.

Nishinoya took one look at Yamaguchi on the floor, and knew exactly what was up.  They’ve been having this conversation for a long time.  Yamaguchi knows this isn’t right.  He admits that much. But, he can’t give up.  He can’t move on.  Maybe he likes the abuse.  That’s the explanation he’s settled on, for the moment.

Nishinoya got back to their shared apartment about a half hour before.  He held off for that long before starting in on his love advice, which was commendable.  It was early for Nishinoya, who has been working as a bartender for the past two years, to be home.  It’s early for Yamaguchi too.  He works as a night nurse in a pediatric hospital.  It’s largely thankless.  It isn’t easy, and it isn’t exactly what he had in mind for himself.  He’s still a little disappointed, but he’s learning to like it.   _‘Aim for the moon, land among the stars,’_ he reminds himself.

They started living together because schedules happen to overlap.  Yamaguchi wanted to move in with Tsukishima after graduating college, but he refused citing Yamaguchi’s nocturnal lifestyle as an insurmountable obstacle.  This rankles Yamaguchi.

It was worst line of bullshit Tsukishima ever had the gall to feed him.  Tsukishima is working part time as an editor for a prominent pop music magazine.  With his wit, it came as a surprise to no one that he is a damn good critic.  He has a gift.  On the side he sells his fighting words for ¥200 each in the form of articles for national publications.  His schedule is blessedly flexible.

“Do you want to hate each other?” Nishinoya asks.  “Why are you doing this to yourselves?”

“I don’t know,” he lies.  

He’s loved Tsukishima since he was a child.  He can’t imagine life without him.  That’s why.  It would feel disloyal.

Disloyalty is something Yamaguchi thinks about a lot.  This is also something he has done since he was a child.  He supposes in this way he lives up to the character spelling his given name, faithfulness, fidelity.  

When he was a kid on the playground people were always promising to be his friend one day, then off in the distance whispering behind their hands the next.  He could understand, for example, why someone might be mean to him if he failed to share his pancake sized Hostess pie at lunch or if he spread nasty rumors.  But, he could not fathom the world he lived in, where the consequences of actions he could not remember invariably brought unrelenting punishment.  

The world shouldn’t be like that.  It should be a place people can figure out what’s lacking, and work their hardest to fix it... unless, of course, it’s something unchangeable like his freckles or his stunningly average frame or the fact that he’s a fucking queer.  That’s how he felt as a child about friendships.  That’s how he feels now about Tsukishima.  It worries him endlessly.

Nishinoya rants.  “What’s it going to take for you to stop putting up with this?  You’re enabling him.  Honestly.”

“I don’t know,” he repeats, and this time it isn’t a lie.

Nishinoya tinkers around in the kitchen.  Yamaguchi can hear the hum of the freezer as its door opens.  Glasses clink.  A drawer slides on its tracks and slams shut.  Nishinoya makes Nishinoya sounds: “swish!”, “bam!”, “bwa!”  Yamaguchi has grown used to these.  They’ve only been living together for a year but when Nishinoya leaves for any significant stretch the apartment feels empty without Nishinoya’s Nishinoya sounds.  It’s funny what time does to people.

“You deserve better.  I hope you know that,” Nishinoya lectures, padding into the room on tiny socked feet.  

He punctuates this sentence by placing a drink on the floor in front of Yamaguchi.  He pads away again.  It blocks Yamaguchi’s view of the cheeto.  He manages to gather enough energy to shove the drink a few centimeters to the side.  He’s relieved the cheeto is still there but disappointed it hasn’t moved any.  He was hoping it would achieve sentience if he gave it enough attention.

Nishinoya pads back into the room.  He decorates the drink with a tiny, pink paper umbrella that Yamaguchi knows he stole from work.  He told Nishinoya once that he would only have hard liquor if there’s an umbrella on it, which was a lie confabulated in an effort to get Nishinoya to stop testing new drinks on him.  Nishinoya now has a seemingly endless supply of tiny, pink umbrellas. Yamaguchi finds them in goofy places: on the bar of soap in the shower, in Yamaguchi’s potted plants, wedged in between the buttons of the remote.

Nishinoya adjusts the umbrella so it rests at just the right angle and exclaims, “Boop!  Doctor Nishinoya’s prescription for heartache."

Yamaguchi sighs.  Nishinoya sounds like his mother, if you replaced the encouragement to imbibe with encouragement to eat more.  He never thought he’d see the day that happened. 

From the very start his mom told him that he shouldn’t bother with Tsukishima.  She says he should find someone else, someone who deserves him.  She even goes so far as to say that eventually they will outgrow one another, whatever that is supposed to mean.  His mother is wrong.  She doesn’t know Tsukishima like he does.  He will always believe Tsukishima's intense, scintillating spirit is a singular phenomenon.  He will go down with that ship.  

His mother loves Nishinoya though.  She asks to talk to him on the phone sometimes because she knows Nishinoya won’t beat around the bush about how Yamaguchi’s doing.  Unfortunately for his mom, Nishinoya is straight.  

Nishinoya snaps Yamaguchi out of his musing by doing jazz hands over the drink he set on the floor like he’s performing some strange blessing on it.

“I call it…” he enthuses, “...the Dirty Cherry.”

Nishinoya gives him a toothy grin.  Yamaguchi snorts.  Nishinoya insists on giving cheesy names to all of his drinks.  Apparently he has a following at work for this, and the acrobatic tricks he performs with the bottles, and his incessant flirtation.  Yes, Nishinoya has found his calling.  He makes bank in tips and comes home with fat rolls of bills.  He finds it amusing to throw these down on the coffee table when he gets back from his shift at five in the morning and spit lyrics, _‘Everyday same shit, me getting paid.  Waking up, new bitch, it's me getting laid.’_

Yamaguchi takes a sip, then flops back on the floor.  “Nishinoya, this is just a Manhattan with sour cherries instead of maraschinos.”

Nishinoya wastes no time in making a nonsensical rejoinder, “That, my friend, is exactly what makes it so dirty.”

This time Yamaguchi laughs.

Nishinoya sits on the sofa.  He begins texting.  He jostles Yamaguchi roughly with his foot.

“Did my miracle cure work?  Are you over it?”

“No,” Yamaguchi admits, limp and defeated, not fighting the way Nishinoya continues rocking his shoulders.

He cannot give a rat’s ass about anybody but Tsukishima.  Tsukishima’s tall and blonde and brilliant.  Tsukishima’s got a body like a battle-axe.  Tsukishima has it all going for him.  Except he’s maybe sort of an asshole sometimes.  Yamaguchi is sure he doesn’t mean it.  He just has trouble talking about his feelings.  He just needs someone who can be patient with him.  Someone like, you know, Yamaguchi.

“‘Ya see,” Nishinoya begins to rant again.  Yamaguchi only half listens.  “I’ve got this theory.  I call it the Love Nail Theory, or the Love Hammer Theory.  I haven’t decided yet.  You know how people say ‘When all you’ve got is a hammer everything you see is a nail?’  When you’re in a relationship, and the person you’re with is having a problem, you can only see solutions where you’re the solution.  You know what I mean?  But, that’s not really true, is it?  Such a mindfuck.  Right?”

“Yeah,” he agrees.

At the same time he gives the cheeto a look to indicate that he thinks Nishinoya has a screw loose.  He thinks the cheeto is on the same page but he can’t really tell because, well, it’s a cheeto.

He would admit they had hit a wall.  According to Tsukishima, if it was meant to be it would be easy.  Love was meant to be easy, like it was when they were in high school.  If it was work, they weren’t doing it right.  By this logic, talking things through was admitting defeat.  Yamaguchi didn’t think he could be more wrong.  He keeps trying.  Sometimes it feels like he is the only one trying, like Tsukishima has collapsed and Yamaguchi is dragging him along behind.  That doesn’t stop him.

Distantly Yamaguchi realizes that Nishinoya is still gently rocking him with a foot on his shoulder.  It’s comforting.  It’s also really weird.

“Noya?” he asks, and his voice comes out smaller than he intended.

“‘Sup, Yama?”

The rocking doesn’t stop.

Yamaguchi doesn’t look at him when he asks, “Um… what are you doing?”

“Well...” There’s laughter in Nishinoya’s voice.  “I’m shaking sense into you.  Is it working?”

“Please, do it harder,” Yamaguchi begs.  

He could use some sense.  That is exactly what he needs.  Nishinoya is a genius.  He’s a madman but he’s also a genius.  Nishinoya obliges him.

His phone buzzes.  His heart leaps.  He turns the phone over.  It’s Tanaka.  His heart sinks.   _‘You fool,’_ he scolds himself.

The texts read:

_Noya wants to tell you that we’re going to have to smack you if you don’t stop falling for Tsukishima’s bullshit sometime this century. - Tanaka_

_But, he’s too nice to say that. - Tanaka_

His phone buzzes again.  Everyone who was ever in the Karasuno Volleyball Club is a gossip and a busybody.  It’s like an initiation requirement.  He picks it up ready to ask Tanaka to kindly stop, please and thank you.  

It’s a text from Tsukishima.  His heart clatters against his ribcage.  Adrenaline shivers, electric, down his veins.

The text reads:

_Come over?  - Tsukki_

He knows he should say no.  He should try again another day, when they have time to have another conversation.  Another conversation, he’s tired of it.  He doesn’t want to have to think about it, just for one night.  That’s all he wants, just one normal night.  He replies:

_Sure, I’ll be right there. - Tadashi_

He hopes for the best.  He picks himself up from the ground, dusts himself off, and goes to the door.  Suddenly he feels fine.  Heartache?  What heartache?  He tugs on his shoes.  He’s going to see his boyfriend, and everything is going to be wonderful.  The idea that Tsukishima’s mouth will be on his soon makes him feel like he’s in free fall, even after all these years.  He’s better than fine.  He’s great.  Hope is a drug.

“What are you doing?” Nishinoya shrills in frustration.  “Is his cock made of cocaine?”

Yamaguchi gives his roommate an apologetic smile.  He slides his wallet in his back pocket, and takes his keys from their hook.  Nishinoya follows him out of the apartment.

“I get it now!  His cock is made of crack-cocaine.  Isn’t it?” Nishinoya yells down the stairwell, heedless of the fact that their neighbors are likely trying to sleep.  “He’s got a crack-cock!  That’s the only explaination for your behavior!  There are programs, Yama.  We can get you help.  Come ba--”

It’s mid-summer, and it’s pleasant to be outside.  He didn’t realize how stifling his apartment was until he feels the night breeze.  The neighborhood is so quiet that it is almost like he’s the only person on earth.

Yamaguchi goes to the bus stop and waits.  Tsukishima only lives about a dozen blocks away.  But, three of these blocks are rather dangerous, especially at night.  Yamaguchi was mugged walking through once, in the broad light of day.  He doesn’t like taking chances.  

When the empty bus comes he sits at the back under the harsh fluorescent lights, body swinging back and forth with the clattering of the wheels over roads badly in need of repair, and wonders what’s going on with him.  He doesn’t have much time to think about it.  Before he knows it, he’s in front of Tsukishima’s apartment building.

Tsukishima’s buzzer is broken, so he texts:

_I’m here. - Tadashi_

He waits on the sidewalk.  For some reason he wants to run.  He can’t breathe.  

But, when Tsukishima’s face appears in the window beside the door everything goes still.  He loves the way his light brown eyes, shimmering with intelligence, framed by black lenses, contrast his halo of gold hair.

 _Hello there, darling,_ he thinks.

His hands might be shaking with excitement.  He looks down at them.  They aren’t.  This is what Tsukishima does to him.  This is what Tsukishima has always done to him.

“Hey.”  

That’s all they say to each other, almost like they’re suddenly shy.  

Yamaguchi loves his airy, treasonous voice.  Tsukishima takes him by the hand.  Tsukishima’s long, elegant fingers are feather-light intertwined with his own.  He loves him for the way his rotten, trash talking mouth contrasts his sweet touch.

It seems like everything is going to be okay.

Entranced by Tsukishima’s graceful gait he quietly follows him up three flights of stairs.

Once they’re inside, before Yamaguchi can even take his shoes off, Tsukishima kisses him.  Yamaguchi can’t think of the right word to describe it but he doesn’t like it.  Tsukishima’s kissing is hungry.  No, that’s not it.  Greedy?  No.  Selfish?  Yes.  Tsukishima’s kisses are selfish.  Yamaguchi feels like he’s suffocating.  This isn’t what he wanted.  He pulls back.

“Hey, wait,” he argues weakly, resting his forehead on Tsukishima’s shoulder and his hands on Tsukishima’s chest.  “I was thinking maybe we could, you know, watch a movie or something.”

“It’s one in the morning,” Tsukishima replies, razor edge to his voice, like Yamaguchi is stupid.  He knocks Yamaguchi down with the palm of his eyes.

Yamaguchi feels blue, and unwell.  He’s about an inch tall.  How could he forget?  They’ve lived in different time-zones since last May, essentially.  

Still, to be treated like a booty call after six years together?  Yamaguchi cannot think of a more cutting insult.  This is his Tsukishima after all, his Prince of the Stinkeye, his King of the Mindfuck.  He supposes he should expect no less.

 _'Fine,'_ he thinks.  ' _Have it your way.'_

He’s a pushover but he’s not a dweeb. He shoves Tsukishima with a hand balled in his shirt, and presses his lips hard against Tsukishima’s before he can argue.  He wastes no time in licking them open.  Their tongues swab over one another.  

Tsukishima hums into his mouth.  He’s always made that noise when he was really thirsty for it.  The hum is a needy, insistent little thing, like a whining complaint.  This, at least, Yamaguchi finds satisfying.  He hasn’t heard that sound in ages.

They’re rough with one another, like they’re constricted to a time limit and they’re determined to get each other off before it runs out.  Yamaguchi shows Tsukishima the way to bed, steering him further and further back into the apartment.  

God it feels good, the release of tension. The kind of frenzied, frenetic kissing they usually do when they’ve missed each other seems chaste in comparison to this.  Yamaguchi pushes him down onto the mattress.  They size one another up for a tense moment, panting lightly.

 _'Try and fool me, go on.  Pretend this is normal.  Say it.  I dare you,'_ Yamaguchi thinks, and is startled at himself.

Tsukishima’s eyes are dark, pupils blown.  They flicker behind his glasses.

 _'Make me.  Make me, make me, make me,'_ they say. _'Make me.'_

Yamaguchi loves Tsukishima’s perfect frown.  He dislikes himself a little for that.  He descends on him, hands everywhere as they strip each other out of their shirts, clumsy with urgency.  Tsukishima’s glasses catch and clatter to the floor.  He looks naked without them.  They don’t stop to pick them up.

Yamaguchi climbs onto the bed and presses Tsukishima down until he’s relaxing back on his elbows.  With that viper mouth of his, there’s something dangerous about him even though he’s primarily a bottom.  Recently, fucking Tsukishima feels like having someone press a knife to his throat, while sweetly feeling his forehead for fever.

He palms Tsukishima through his tight, black jeans to feel how sturdy he is through the fabric.  Tsukishima hisses through his teeth like Yamaguchi’s touch burns.  He takes his sweet time opening the front of his pants.  This he allows himself.

Tsukishima loves being undressed, unwrapped slowly, savored.  Yamaguchi pops the button, waits a breathless moment, and unzips his fly one tooth at a time.  He stops there to pull Tsukishima free of his underwear.  Like this, fabric framing him, he looks more exposed than he would completely stripped.

It’s a perfect little thing, Tsukishima’s cock, not too big and not too small but pretty somehow.  Yamaguchi likes how hard it gets for him, how it twitches into his hand, how it flushes pink near the flared head, and draws lines of precum across his flat belly.

He spits on it, wets it, spits again.  This gets Tsukishima’s pants dirty.  It doesn’t matter.  He knows Tsukishima likes it.  He’s always been nasty like that.  When Tsukishima first asked this of him Yamaguchi found it humiliating.  Tsukishima had to coach him: _‘Come on, Tadashi.  Spit on it.  Yeah, like that.  Get it nice and wet.  Do it again.  Just open your mouth and drool on it.  That’s right.  You got it right.  Now look at me.  Yeah, Tadashi.  Fuck.’_

He doesn’t want to think about that.  Without further preamble he dips down to swallow Tsukishima all the way in one slow sure stroke, so his nose is flush with his pubic hair.  The stretch as he invades past the soft flesh at the back of his throat is painful and satisfying.  Tsukishima is firm and alive in his mouth.  Feeling his pulse on his tongue, quick and light as his own, makes him feel like he’s got a hold of Tsukishima’s beating heart.

Tsukishima knows exactly what he wants.  He indulges him.  He tangles his hands in Yamaguchi’s hair.  He doesn’t pull hard.  He just keeps enough tension to let Yamaguchi know he’s there, and that if he does try to move any it will hurt.  In this way Tsukishima holds him down until he begins to struggle for air, fucks up into his throat, waits until Yamaguchi is on the edge of fighting back in earnest, then lets go.  They do this again and again.  

Saliva pools in the corners of his mouth and flows over to soak the fabric bunched around Tsukishima’s cock.  His jaw feels stiff.  His lungs burn.  He has to fight to keep from gagging.  Even when he does gag he doesn’t stop. Concentrating on swallowing around Tsukishima comforts him.  It’s impossible to think of anything else.  His own cock strains and aches and leaks, trapped inside his pants.  He easily ignores it.

He’s torn between the decision to let Tsukishima cum down his throat or to flip him on his stomach and plow him into the mattress.  It shouldn’t be that big a deal.  It’s not like the number of orgasms Tsukishima will have for him is finite.

His hand gropes up to Tsukishima’s face.  He finds Tsukishima’s lips, and pierces them.  Tsukishima’s wicked tongue flicks over his fingers as Yamaguchi traces the crescent outline of his bottom teeth.  Tsukishima’s hands leave his hair.  

There’s the familiar click of Tsukishima’s favorite bottle of lube.  The decision seems simple suddenly.  He withdraws his fingers from Tsukishima’s mouth, sits up, and tugs Tsukishima’s pants off by pulling at their cuffs.  His underwear quickly follow.

Most people would read Tsukishima’s face as blank.  Yamaguchi sees quiet belligerence.  Yet, color has risen in Tsukishima’s cheeks.  They’ve done this hundreds of times and Tsukishima, no matter what his filthy mouth says, has blushed every one of them.  

When they were very young Tsukishima used to try to hide his blush behind his hands, cage of his fingers worked up behind his glasses.  Yamaguchi, much bolder alone in bed with Tsukishima than he was anyplace else, used to continue whatever it was he was doing but wordlessly pluck them away over and over until the routine was silly, and Tsukishima forgot his embarrassment and laughed for him.  Remembering this makes Yamaguchi feel like a shard of glass has lodged itself in his chest.

He doesn’t pause to process.  He grabs the the bottle and he coats his fingers excessively, dipping back down to kiss the inside of Tsukishima’s svelte, spread thighs as he does so.  Tsukishima tenses as he traces a cold wet line down over his balls.  He pets teasingly over Tsukishima’s hole with the pads of his fingers until Tsukishima’s hands fist in the sheets and he jerks and quivers with each stroke.

When he sinks a first finger in it slides knuckle deep with little resistance.  Finally, Tsukishima gives him a wet gasp.  Encouraged by this he adds another finger.  Tsukishima’s spine curves off the bed into a long, pale arc that joins the rise of his hips to the dip of his shoulders.  Every nerve of Yamaguchi’s being enthuses yes.  

Tsukishima loves to be stretched, to feel friction, to be hit hard on the spot that makes his eyes flutter closed.  So, Yamaguchi quickly adds a third finger, and attacks Tsukishima’s prostate with short, punishing strokes.  His technique is honed and sharp from practice.  He scrapes deep moans from Tsukishima’s throat.

It doesn’t take long for his arm to begin to grow tired.  Tsukishima doesn’t seem to notice.  It pisses Yamaguchi off a little.  But, he doesn’t complain.  Tsukishima’s always been a bit of a pillow prince.  

To distract himself from the dull burning pain he focuses on the pleasurable vice-like clamp of Tsukishima’s body around his fingers, the slick rubbery slide of it.  He worships Tsukishima’s cock.  That’s the only word for his long, lathing licks and ravenous, open-mouthed kisses, worship.  Tsukishima, meanwhile, sounds like he’s also having some sort of religious experience with the way he’s groaning.  His legs begin to tremble.

He doesn’t stop until Tsukishima is snarling down at him, demanding: “Gimme your cock now.  Give it.  Give it.”

He flips Tsukishima over, pulls him up abruptly by his hips.  The excessive amount of lube he spilled trails lasciviously down Tsukishima’s right thigh.  He opens his fly, and aborts a sigh of relief at finally freeing his neglected cock.  He doesn’t bother to take his pants off.  He just slips them down over the curve of his ass.  

There is moment of resistance where the head of his cock catches at the puckered rim of Tsukishima’s entrance.  Then, Tsukishima’s greedy body sucks him in.  Tsukishima somehow growls and sighs at the same time.  His flesh parts, centimeter by impossible centimeter.  Inside Tsukishima is all fluttering, velvety heat.  It like he’s melting around him.  For the first few seconds Yamaguchi swears Tsukishima is killing him.   

When he gets his bearings he takes aim at the sweet spot inside his boyfriend and fucks him like he has something to prove.  The room is filled with lewd squelching and the obscene slap of flesh on flesh as he drives into him.  He’s going too hard, and too fast.  He knows Tsukishima will feel this for days.  But that’s what he wants.  

Distantly, he’s aware that he’s panting a groan with each vicious stroke.  It’s okay.  Tsukishima is gasping with the intake of each break and sighing on the exhalation.  Tsukishima is quiet like this when he’s close.  He’s angling his hips for more.  There’s a vindictive satisfaction in it, bringing Tsukishima off without touching his cock.  

Vindictive, Yamaguchi doesn’t think about that too hard.  Somehow he’s afraid that if he slows his thrusts, Tsukishima will get away.  He concentrates instead on the staving off their orgasm.  They’re linked like that.  He cums when Tsukishima does, unfailingly.

Yamaguchi pushes Tsukishima down so he’s pinned against the mattress.  He laces their fingers together and pins them to the mattress too.  His hips stutter and slow.  He wants this to last.  They’re too close.

“Don’t stop,” Tsukishima snaps.  “Don’t you dare.”

He acquiesces.  Sweat slips down the side of his face, sticking his hair to his forehead.  His hands clench around Tsukishima’s.  Tsukishima clamps down around him, and Yamaguchi knows he’s quietly cumming against the sheets, holding his breath through his orgasm like he always does.  He bites into his shoulder.

Everything tightens as he reaches the edge.  Heat gathers to a shimmering point, heavy and sweet in the pit of his stomach, and spills from him in twitches.  He rides Tsukishima through it, thinks about painting Tsukishima’s insides with his cum.  His entire world narrows to the points where they touch.

He comes back to himself far too soon.  Tsukishima winces as he pulls out.  They fall away from each other spent, panting as if from a race.  

This is the best sex they’ve had in months.  It feels wrong.  

Yamaguchi squeezes Tsukishima’s hand.  Tsukishima doesn’t squeeze back.  He picks his glasses up off the floor and retreats to the bathroom without saying a word.  The door locks behind him.

He kicks his pants off and watches the silhouette of the bathroom door as his breathing evens.  Tsukishima takes an awfully long time in there.  The sweat cools on Yamaguchi’s skin.  He feels restless.  He sits fitfully up and sets to changing the sheets.

When Tsukishima emerges from the bathroom Yamaguchi has half dozed off, flopped across the foot of the bed.  He opens one eye to watch Tsukishima.  Skin pink from the shower he goes silently about readying himself for bed.

“‘Sukki?” Yamaguchi interrupts.

Tsukishima looks owlishly up at him from where he’s ransacking a low lying drawer for a set of pajamas.  His glasses slip down his nose.  Yamaguchi decides he’s too tired for an argument.

“Hm?” Tsukishima prompts when Yamaguchi doesn’t say anything.  “What?”

“Nothing.  Tired,” he half-lies and turns over.

Tsukishima joins him.  They snuggle up together, Yamaguchi spooning Tsukishima.  It feels forced but Tsukishima looks comfortables so he tries not to fidget too much.  The clock ticks noisily in the dark familiar room, with Tsukishima’s smell of clean sheets and over-priced soap and old books all around him.  He can’t sleep so he guesses he should try again to stick up for himself.  

“Tsukki?”

Tsukishima doesn’t answer.  He sits up.  His boyfriend is curled in his blankets breathing evenly.  

“I don’t understand what’s going on with you,” he tells the empty air.

Tsukishima’s peaceful face twists his insides.  He leaves the room to lie on Tsukishima’s couch and study the spreading spider crack in the ceiling.  He tries to read a book from one of Tsukishima’s many packed bookshelves.  It doesn’t interest him.  For some reason he considers calling a cab.  He ends up sleeping fitfully.

He wakes up feeling like he hasn’t slept at all.  The clock cheerily tells him it is 4:31 AM.  The sliver of sky he can see between over the rooftops outside Tsukishima's window is blue grey in the predawn light. He closes his eyes tight against it and tries to will himself back to sleep.  It doesn’t work.  He had known it wouldn’t work.  He was wide awake immediately upon regaining consciousness.

Instead he sits up and listens to the eerie buzz of an airplane making its way across the sky, the sound of water running in the next apartment over, the sound of the downstairs door slamming, the sound of a car rudely honking in the street, the sound a child crying with that sort of wail that tells you their brain isn’t fully developed because they really think whatever it is they’re sobbing over is a sure and true sign that their world is ending, and made Yamaguchi feel, irrationally, that maybe his world is ending too.  The walls in Tsukishima’s apartment are too thin.  There’s movement in the bedroom. Why couldn’t he just sleep for another hour?

“Tsukki?” Yamaguchi calls.

Tsukishima emerges into the living room.  Without his glasses, gold hair sticking out in every direction, he looks as bad as Yamaguchi feels.  It’s clear that he didn’t sleep well, and it’s not right for him to be up at this hour.  He scans the room, overturns some papers, looks at the couch where Yamaguchi is sitting.  

 _'Here we go again.  Not this.'_   Yamaguchi looks up to the heavens for deliverance and begs the spider crack in the ceiling,  ' _Please not this again.  I can’t.  I just wanted to go one day without thinking about this.'_

He doesn’t say that.  Gently he asks, “What do you need, Tsukki?  Your specs?  Are you looking for your specs?”

“Mmhm…” Tsukishima answers not meeting his eyes, and he looks dazed.

Yamaguchi feels like crying.

There’s something going on with Tsukishima that he cannot name, though he has a pretty good idea.  Tsukishima is trying to hide it from him, and failing miserably.  It hangs heavy in the air around him like the weighty stillness that permeates a house before a summer storm.  Yamaguchi wants to help him.  He has the feeling that Tsukishima might be in pain but he doesn’t know anymore.  He doesn’t even think Tsukishima knows anymore.

What he fears more than anything else is that there is something wrong with Tsukishima, that there is something disastrously wrong with him.  He’s always been odd.  But, nowadays he cuts off contact with friends and relatives for days on end.  He is irritable in a way Yamaguchi has trouble brushing off.  For no discernible reason, he’ll lash out with his mouth like a viper, and leave psychic welts that take days to heal.  Yamaguchi intuits that his sleep patterns are off, and that he neglects to eat.  But, he can’t tell because Tsukishima, who has always been a highly private person, has become disturbingly secretive.  

He becomes so distant and detached that trying to have a conversation with him is like trying to draw blood from a stone.  He goes about his days sluggishly, looking like his nerves are soaked in molasses.  He falls asleep in strange places: at the kitchen table, curled against the wall of the gym during their evening pick-up games, on crowded public buses.  His sunlight is wasted staring out his bedroom window, headphones fixed over his ears, pretending to read.  His sweet tooth kicks into overdrive.  All he seems to be able to stomach are sugared strawberries and sponge cake.  Yamaguchi indulges him.  But, he takes even smaller than usual portions and leaves most of his food on his plate.

As this wears on it dements him.  His logic is eroded.  Sometimes Yamaguchi can’t follow his fractured, paranoid thoughts.  He imbues seemingly inconsequential events with great significance, upon which his world turns.   _‘And when I saw Aki wasn’t a starter, I knew the world is made up of winners and losers.’_  He becomes forgetful.  He always puts his glasses in the same three places: the windowsill by his bed, the coffee table, and the bathroom sink.  But, Yamaguchi catches him looking for them.  Yamaguchi finds this terrifying.  And it’s only been getting worse.

Tsukishima vehemently denies there’s anything the matter.   _‘I’m just tired,’_ he’ll argue. _‘You just worry too much,’_ he’ll argue.  Yamaguchi thinks this is part of it, too, the fact that Tsukishima’s self-awareness is regressing.  Yamaguchi’s never felt more helpless in his life.  Given his childhood, that’s saying something.

Yamaguchi takes Tsukishima by the hand and drags him back into the bedroom.  His glasses are where they always are, right there on the windowsill by the bed.  

“Here, Tsukishima.  See?  They’re on the _windowsill_.”

“So they are,” Tsukishima agrees, unmoved by Yamaguchi’s agitation.

Yamaguchi crawls across the bed to retrieve them.  Tsukishima sits and allows Yamaguchi to put his glasses on for him.  He calms himself by holding Tsukishima’s darling face with its obstinate pout.  He pets over the bags under Tsukishima’s tired eyes with his thumbs.  

Holding Tsukishima’s gaze like this he says for what feels like the millionth time, “Tsukishima, you’re _scaring_ me.”

Tsukishima draws away.  He plucks the mug of water he keeps on his dresser while he sleeps up and clamps it between his hands.  This completely closes Tsukishima’s body off, and makes it difficult for Yamaguchi to find an angle to hold him.

“Because I misplaced my glasses?” he asks, icily.

Yamaguchi feels like his voice is echoing back to him from a wall that Tsukishima has erected around himself.  “Please don’t.  You know it’s not just that.”

Yamaguchi thinks Tsukishima’s answer to himself before Tsukishima says it.  That doesn’t make hearing it any less frustrating.

He huffs, “I’m just tired.”

“Okay,” Yamaguchi pretends to agree.  He changes lines of attack.  “What about last night?  What _was_ that?”

The malice underlying the sex they had disturbs Yamaguchi.  Apparently it disturbed Tsukishima too.  The angry way the water sloshes in his mug when he puts it down frightens Yamaguchi.  Tsukishima is fighting him with weapons too subtle for him to understand, let alone disarm.  What is he supposed to say?   _‘Don’t put that mug down at me like that!  What is that supposed to mean, the way you put that mug down?  It hurts me when you do that!  Jesus, Tsukki!  I know you’re as afraid as I am.  Just say it.  Use your words.  Give me something to work with.’_

Tsukishima brushes him off.  “I fell asleep.  Didn’t mean anything by it.”

Yamaguchi knows the push-back he’s going to get with what he’s going to say, but he speaks his mind anyway,  “Tsukki, will you at least consider the possibility that you have a mood disorder?”

Tsukishima clicks his tongue against his teeth.  “You’re not a _doctor_ , Tadashi.  Sorry your grades were never good enough for med school.  I know you gave it a great shot.  But, don’t take it out on me with this armchair psychology business.  I'm tired of it.”

On second thought, Yamaguchi was not prepared for that sort of push-back.  His jaw falls open.  Tsukishima’s words shock and sting as badly as if he had physically reached out and cut him.  He closes his eyes.  He counts back from ten.  He doesn’t even get to six.

“Wow.  Great.  Lovey!  That’s nice.  Very nice, Tsukki.  Mature.  Have you been holding onto that gem for a while?  Or did you think it up on the fly?"

Yamaguchi doesn’t realize he’s yelling until he’s finished.  He scrubs his hands over his face.  He takes a deep steadying breath.  It’s not much use.  He’s never had a temper with anyone except Tsukishima.  He always did know how to push every single one of his buttons, how to give him harrowing guided tours of his own range of emotions.

“Somebody’s bitter,” Tsukishima snips sounding pretty damn bitter himself.

Yamaguchi ignores that, even though it smarts terribly.  “Prove me wrong.  Talk to an _actual_ doctor.”

“I’m the same way I’ve always been,” Tsukishima insists.  “I don’t feel any different.”

“I beg to differ,” Yamaguchi shrills.  He knows he’s shrilling and he hates it.  “I think you’re getting worse.  Most people aren’t diagnosed until twenty-five, you know.”

“Hah.” Tsukishima laughs humorlessly.  “Right.  Okay.  Since you’re such an expert, where’d you get that fact?  Hm?  Wikipedia?”

Yamaguchi throws his hands up.  “Get bent, Kei.”

Tsukishima gasps and claps his hands together like he’s been struck by genius.  “Hey.  I’ve got an idea.  Let’s cut to what is really about.”

“Kei, if you don’t shut your mouth this instant so help me God--”

As usual Tsukishima keeps right on talking, “You’re controlling, and clingy, and now that we don’t spend all of our free time together because of your job, you’re insecure--”

Yamaguchi makes a sound of disgust.  Everything is his fault.  Of course it is.  Yamaguchi has no idea how Tsukishima can say these things with a straight face.

“ _Excuse me._   You’re more insecure than usual,” Tsukishima revises.  “And you’re looking for problems.”

This sets Yamaguchi’s teeth on edge.  “Is that all you got?  Are you done now?  Do you feel better?”

Tsukishima sniffs primly.  “Actually, I am done.  Thanks for asking.”

They fall quiet.  Yamaguchi puts his elbows on his knees, hangs his head, and laces his fingers behind his neck.  Tsukishima picks at the blankets.  They sit like this until Yamaguchi’s temper cools.  It doesn’t take very long.  He tries to remember the last time he saw Tsukishima that they did not have some variation of this conversation.  He shakes his head at himself.  He can’t recall.

Tsukishima can’t talk about this.  He can’t _fix_ it.  That’s not his responsibility, Yamaguchi tells himself.  It’s not much of a comfort.  He wishes it were.  He wants to climb inside Tsukishima’s head and sort everything out for them.  But, that’s impossible.

“Listen.  I love you, Tsukki.  I love you so, very, much,” he tells the floor between his feet.  

He is truly stuck.  They have stood still in the same spot for too long.  He is afraid he will never move forward.  But, that’s the moment to jump, he thinks, when he is most afraid, otherwise he will never get anywhere.  Throw a grenade in exactly the spot he’s standing, and jump, and pray; it is the momentum of last resort.  He swallows his panic.

“But…”

“But…?” Tsukishima echoes.

 _‘Jump, jump, jump,’_ he tells himself, and he can feel Tsukishima’s eyes searching him. _‘Move!’_

“I can’t see you anymore,” he says evenly.  His voice is hollow.  “I can’t do this anymore.”

Yamaguchi looks up.  They’re both shocked by his words, for different reasons.  Yamaguchi is surprised at how calm he sounds.  Tsukishima, on the other hand, seems not to be able to believe what he’s heard at all.  Yamaguchi can tell by the way Tsukishima’s eyebrows knit, and his complete failure to produce a witty retort.  They go dead still.  

“Huh?” Tsukishima breathes.

“You need help,” he says, one last time.

“Let me get this straight,” Tsukishima recovers his disbelieving, vitriolic tone quickly.  “You’re serious. You’re breaking up with me over the fact that you think I need professional help?”

He says that but Yamaguchi knows in that moment that Tsukishima has been waiting for this, devising it even.  Tsukishima frowns like he’s looking down on Yamaguchi but the tension visible in his body screams that he’s sorry now that it’s finally come.  What he looks like is the scared little kid Yamaguchi always knew he was.  It’s not endearing anymore.  It’s not even frustrating.  It’s sad.  His heart aches for him.

Yamaguchi tries thinking of it another way.  Maybe it will work out.  Maybe one day Tsukishima will not be an emotional trainwreck, and it will work out.  Except, Yamaguchi isn’t going to stick around waiting for that to happen anymore.  He wants to.  But, he can’t.  It is ruining them.  He’s afraid that if he does they’ll rip each other apart, and there won’t be anything left to pick up if Tsukishima is himself again.  This is for the best.

He has always acted in Tsukishima’s best interest, and he always will.

“I’m hurt by the way you’ve been behaving and, I don’t feel like you’re being honest with either of us about what’s going on with you.”

Yamaguchi feels like he has already checked out, left the building.  That makes it easier to speak like what he’s saying isn’t an accusation or a complaint but a statement of fact spoken between from one friend to another.  That’s right, just friends.  It's a full circle.  Yamaguchi has known him too long to do anything other than give it to him straight.

It’s strange.  He feels an air of finality but at the same time remembers that he had many plans quietly constructed for the two of them while they were still high schoolers.  He can’t for the life of him name what they were, all the different futures he thought of.  This wasn’t one of them.  

He remembers the white Somy headphones hanging off Tsukishima’s bed stand, though.  He got those for Tsukishima on his fifteenth birthday.  He saved up so long, and he was so nervous.  Tsukishima told him they were too much for a gift between friends, because they were.  He wore them every day anyhow, for years and years.  They’re worn out now, and Tsukishima has better pairs.  But, he still wears them sometimes.

They kissed for the first time when they were seventeen.  Tsukishima fitted those headphones over his ears, made him close his eyes, and played The Shondells' "I Think We're Alone Now."  Tsukishima was not naturally a romantic.  When he tried it was fumbling and overblown and adorable.  

The song went: _'Children, behave.'  That's what they say when we're together.  And watch how you play.  They don't understand.  And so we're running just as fast as we can.  Holding on to one another's hand.  Trying to get away into the night.  And you put your arms around me as we tumble to the ground.  And then you say, 'I think we're alone now.  There doesn't seem to be anyone around.  The beating of our hearts is the only sound.’_

He'd never forget it.  He was so shocked by the choice that he laughed nervously right in Tsukishima's face just as their lips were about to touch.  Tsukishima blushed and snarled, _‘Don't laugh!’_  In a surge of bravery Yamaguchi soothed him by kissing him, skillfully slipping him tongue to sass him at the same time.  Eyes smiling, mouth occupied, Tsukishima responded by changing the song.

_'My baby does the hanky panky.  Yeah!  My baby...'_

He'd never forget that song either, for entirely different reasons.

In college Yamaguchi used to wear them.  They would lay shoulder to shoulder in Tsukishima’s bed, using splitters to listen to the same music on different sets.  He’d play air guitar while Tsukishima gave him righteous accompaniments on air drums.  It didn’t matter to either of them how silly they looked.   Tsukishima’s expensive stereo setup went untouched.  If they used headphones, they felt like the music belonged only to the two of them.  They felt like they were the only two people in the world.

He wonders where that Tsukishima went.  He misses him.  He wants to talk to him again.  When he was a kid Tsukishima seemed capable of anything.  He feels like he’s seeing Tsukishima for the first time, and he’s a stranger.  

Tsukishima gropes for the right words.  “I don’t know-- I don’t know why you think--  I--”

He stops.  Stammering is not his style.  He looks resolutely out the window like the answer is there.

“I didn’t mean it, all that stuff I said,” Tsukishima offers lamely after what seems like a very long time.  

His flat voice wavers almost imperceptibly.

That’s an insane thing to say, with the way he’s been acting.  Somehow Yamaguchi is sure it’s true.  In his own way Tsukishima is doing best he can.  As it turns out, in the end, it’s just like Tsukishima has always feared.  He best isn’t good enough.  He needs help.  Yamaguchi isn’t the one who can give it to him.  Yamaguchi sincerely hopes that Tsukishima will get it instead of repeating the same self-defeating lies he's been repeating since the day they met.

“I know,” Yamaguchi replies.  “I know you didn’t.”

 _‘...my unhinged darling.’_ he adds mentally.

He doesn’t know what else he can say.  He has run out of things to say to Tsukishima.  It’s just an awkward interaction with someone he used to know well.  He doesn’t know how to bow out politely.  

“I’m leaving now,” is all he comes up with.

He does exactly that.  Tsukishima doesn’t leave his bedroom.  Yamaguchi doesn’t stick around to brush his teeth, or comb his hair.  He just pulls on the same socks he was wearing the night before, picks up his wallet and keys and heads out the door.

When he hits the sidewalk exhaustion sets in on him so heavily that he feels unstuck from reality.  He’s got the sort of headache that makes him feel like he’s been punched in the face by a gummy bear.  It’s too early in the morning for people to be about.  He’s not used to being up at this hour.  This is usually the end of his day, not the beginning of it.  

Disoriented, Yamaguchi picks a direction and walks.  He feels gutted and hollow, like he’s floating just above the road.  He’s lived in that neighborhood since he was a sophomore in college but he’s lost.  

It doesn’t matter.  Anywhere is good as long as he gets away from Tsukishima.  Tsukishima isn’t the type to beg or cry, but he is more relieved than disappointed that Tsukishima hasn’t started chasing after him.  

“I did the right thing,” he mutters to the empty street.

Between the buildings there isn’t a cloud in sight.  The sky is unusually blue.  He wishes he could have taken Tsukishima to the beach today, just so he could have slept in the sun while Tsukishima schooled snot-nosed kids in volleyball.


End file.
